"But Al Jazeera’s videos show soldiers and police sweeping through charred and still smoldering cities to arbitrarily round up targets. These “suspects,” some of them deformed men on crutches, were then ordered to lie face down and shot at close range. "
"Murder most foul"
by Okey Ndibe
Horror, that’s the word that came to mind as I watched Al Jazeera’s video documentation of Nigerian soldiers and police executing innocent civilians last year in the name of fighting Boko Haram. Last July and August, hundreds of Nigerians died in a fierce battle between the militant group, which denounced all western influences as corrupting, and Nigerian government forces. But Al Jazeera’s videos show soldiers and police sweeping through charred and still smoldering cities to arbitrarily round up targets. These “suspects,” some of them deformed men on crutches, were then ordered to lie face down and shot at close range.
Those who made a gruesome sport of killing their fellows should be identified and prosecuted. Any nation that would treat its citizens as if they were lower than cattle sows the seeds of its own destruction. Those who excuse the bestial extra-judicial execution on the grounds that the victims were rabid Boko Haram attack dogs are off the mark. For one, the soldiers and police had no way of proving who was Boko Haram or who wasn’t. Besides, a state that authorizes summary execution has cast itself as a jungle, not a community of humans.
At any rate, if Nigeria must adopt executions without trial, why not start with the politicians whose mindless looting creates hopelessness and fertilizes groups like Boko Haram?
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